How to Sell Cloud Computing

Why Selling Cloud Computing is Different

As an IT professional, when you sell cloud-based IT services, you’re selling the stuff you’ve been traditionally selling, it’s just delivered differently.

What changes is that you move your focus away from features and functions to strategic business issues. You’re going to up-level your customer relationships beyond the I.T. department. Don’t worry, I’ll talk about how in this blog!

You’re going to work with executives to understand where they’re business is going and how you’re going to help them get there. Cloud is going to make you more strategic and less tactical. And you know that strategists are paid much better than tacticians. That’s one way you can get more margin and make more money.

You’ve got to learn how to sell disruptive technology—a technology that changes how I.T. is delivered, and the world will never be the same. It’s not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when” cloud becomes part of your customer’s I.T. strategy. You want to be there first.

When you sell disruptive technology, you focus on selling an outcome, not the underlying technology or the HOW you plan to deliver the outcome. When Henry Ford was selling the first mass-produced automobile—true disruptive technology—he said, “If I’d asked them what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Similarly with cloud, if you ask the I.T. department what they want, it’s faster servers and network, more storage, and a bigger sys admin budget. But if you ask executives what they want, it’s competitive advantage, company agility, reduced risk, and an I.T. department that says, “Yes, I can have the up and running today.” See how cloud is going to be disruptive!